


The Sum of Wisdom

by thisprettywren



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Community: thegameison_sh, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-01
Updated: 2011-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-26 18:12:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisprettywren/pseuds/thisprettywren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock has deleted a lot of things from his hard drive over the years, but some things, he never quite forgets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sum of Wisdom

Sherlock has deleted a lot of things from his hard drive over the years.

Extraneous data, of course. Those decisions are easy. John had laughed at him about his lack of knowledge about the solar system, but it isn't as though astronomy were powered on his own understanding of it. The planets had been orbiting the sun since long before there were humans to understand the physics of it; they'd continue to do so long after the last rational minds were gone. No reason to waste his own (brilliant; limited) mind on what amounted to trivia.

Upsetting details from his own personal history. He deletes those, not because they aren't important--they are; or, at least they were at the time, and Sherlock does know enough to realise that's its own type of valuable information--but because they're distracting. Mycroft has always found it disconcerting to recount a childhood memory only to find that his own brother has no recollection of it happening. He'd objected rather strenuously when he discovered that Sherlock had deleted the memory of their pet spaniel.

("It's a matter of _humanity_ , Sherlock."

"He was a dog. It was years ago. What possible purpose could it serve, taking up space in my brain?")

*

Some information he never bothers to store at all.

Sherlock doesn't know how to drive, for instance, although he has no doubt that, should the need arise, he'd be able to work out the mechanics quickly enough. He's entirely avoided reading large sections of the accepted literary canon. There are large numbers of non-European plants whose blooms he wouldn't recognise (though he has relevant websites bookmarked).

Ancillary data, mostly. Information he could find if he needed it.

*

Some things, he never quite forgets.

His mother's birthday, for one, though she died years ago. He'd tried to delete it, a few months after the funeral. When it rolled around again the following April, Sherlock had been glad that particular bit of data had stuck.

Mrs Hudson's favourite type of biscuits. Ostensibly because it's useful to be able to curry her favour, though he hasn't taken advantage of it since moving into the Baker Street flat. Building up capital, he told himself, the last time he brought her a packet. She'd smiled and thanked him, and he'd declined her offer for tea.

There are seventeen steps up to 221b. It's not necessary knowledge, except when it is: when he's exhausted or hurt, when he knows John's waiting for him. He counts them every time.

Sherlock never forgets how to shoot a gun, despite Mycroft having successfully kept him from acquiring one after that case with the Serbian diplomat, four months after he moved to Montague Street. (Then John arrives and--to belabour a metaphor--shoots Mycroft's best efforts all to hell. Just for that, Sherlock thinks he'll keep him.)

***

Sherlock finds John's cane propped behind the sitting room door one late summer afternoon. Through the open window comes the sound, not of London traffic, but of the lazy droning of bees.

He stares at it for a long time before picking it up, hefting it in his hands, testing its weight. John watches him do it over the tops of his glasses, not speaking. It feels almost unbearably medical under his fingertips, its metal smooth and cold.

"I don't remember this being here."

John sighs and folds his paper down into his lap. "That's my old cane," he says. His voice is patient; he'd long ago accepted that Sherlock's genius comes with this sort of price.

"You hated it," Sherlock says. "It can't have any sentimental value for you." He's frowning at John as though John himself is a puzzle, as though the answer could be read on his face.

"I did hate it," John agrees.

"You haven't needed it in years. Not since--"

Not since that first night, running together down alleys and up staircases. The first time John had followed Sherlock even though he was wrong (then right, then wrong again); that night Sherlock did something unforgivably stupid and John answered by doing something unforgivably brave.

When he looks up again, John is smiling at him, the corners of his eyes creasing into lines that are, perhaps, deeper now than they once were, but no less kind. "Remembered now, have you?"

The answer Sherlock gives is the truest he knows. "I never forget the important things," he says. "Those, I always keep."

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Cycle 4, Round 3 of [thegameison_sh](thegameison_sh). The prompt was "lost and found."
> 
> Title taken from a quote by Emerson.


End file.
